Marin commuters spend more time getting to and from work than their average Bay Area counterpart, according to new data provided by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission.
As a region, the average Bay Area commuter takes 28.1 minutes to get to work. For Marin drivers the number is 28.6 minutes. The longest commutes in the Bay Area were recorded in 2000 during the dot.com boom when the average commute was 29.4 minutes, but that figure dipped to 27.4 minutes in 2009 as the country was in a deep recession.
“If you look at historical trends, the commute times have been getting longer since 1980,” said John Goodwin, MTC spokesman. “But what we see is the commute times are tracking to the economy. As the economy gets better, commutes get longer.”
The data come from the commission’s new Vital Signs program — vitalsigns.mtc.ca.gov — designed to give Bay Area residents a snapshot of key transportation, land use, environmental and economic policy trends.
The commute data in the report — based on the U.S. Census — also break down times for those who use different modes to get to work. In Marin, solo drivers take 26.2 minutes to get to work, carpoolers 29.7 minutes and those who take transit 50.5 minutes.
That is compared to Bay Area solo drivers who take 25.8 minutes to get to work, carpoolers 30 minutes and transit users 45.7 minutes.
Among Marin’s cities and towns, the communities of Tiburon and Belvedere have the slowest commutes at 36.4 minutes as the struggle to get to Highway 101 along traffic-choked Tiburon Boulevard. Sausalito residents have a 31.4-minute commute, Mill Valley drivers take 29 minutes.
Commuters in the Ross Valley who traverse busy Sir Francis Drake Boulevard also recorded sluggish drive times. Ross drivers take 34.6 minutes, San Anselmo drivers 32.4 minutes and Fairfax drivers 30.8 minutes.
In Central Marin, Corte Madera residents spend 29.8 minutes getting to work; Larkspur residents, 27.7 minutes. San Rafael residents had the shortest commute in Marin at 25.4 minutes, while Novato clocked in at 28.7 minutes.
“This information is not just useful to researchers but genuinely interesting to the public at large,” said Dave Vautin, MTC’s Vital Signs project manager. “We’ve worked hard to develop custom charts and maps, combined with high-quality graphics, that will allow all Bay Area residents to better understand what’s happening in their county, city and neighborhood.”
Area commutes
Commute times in Bay Area counties in minutes:
Contra Costa: 33.3
San Francisco: 30.5
Solano: 28.9
Alameda: 28.8
Marin: 28.6
San Mateo: 25.7
Sonoma: 25.3
Santa Clara: 25
Napa: 23.6
Bay Area: 28.1
Source: Metropolitan Transportation Commission
